INSTANT MBA: "We All Have Enormous Amounts Of Creative Capacity"

Today’s advice comes from Detroit Venture Partners CEO Josh Linkner’s interview with BusinessReport.com:“We all have enormous amounts of creative capacity, but we tend to hold it back. And we might be afraid of, what’s my boss going to say? Who’s going to fund my idea? Will I look foolish? What’s this going to mean to my career? What I’ve learned is, the best of the best have the same fears all of us do, but they proceed with their ideas nonetheless.”

Linkner is also CEO and founder of ePrize, an interactive promotion agency. The freedom to be creative in a work environment is necessary, he says, because creativity is what distinguishes great businesses from good ones. It’s also what will separate real innovation from lackluster copycats.

Managers risk stifling some of the best ideas when they won’t listen to out-of-the-box thinking, Linkner says. Managers and other workers alike often forget that the best, most successful products aren’t the more utilitarian ones that might appeal to everyone — instead, they are the game-changers that revolutionise life for a certain subset of people.

With that in mind, managers must foster an environment where it’s acceptable, and even encouraged, to let creative ideas flow.

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